Fostering community: Library provides safe zone for youth

SUN photo/Shanti JohnsonSome of the library’s youngest patrons — tweens in grades four through six — give their best champion poses after completing their virtual track and field competition. The gamers practice their coordination and literacy skills while learning how to work together as a team.

Summertime at the library is jumping — quite literally this week, with teen and tween (fourth- through sixth-grade) patrons coming together to play a variety of video games where they leap over hurdles, try their hand at bowling and practice their volleyball skills, all while making new friends.

Trina Rivera, in charge of teen, and now tween, services for the library, began a series of programs for seventh- through 12th-graders when she first took her position in August of 2012. Over the past year and a half, the library’s gaming programs have grown in attendance by about 200 percent.

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